


you won't have to look far

by BlackCats



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Developing Relationship, Dialogue Heavy, F/M, Fluff and stuff, Post-Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 14:10:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5668825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackCats/pseuds/BlackCats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wyvern-tamers didn't entertain visitors from Ylisse. Especially when that visitor is the exalt-who-was in a future that could have been, and a exalt-who-will-be in the future that is now.<br/>She's a princess, and he's a wolf without a battlefield--he'd been expecting her, honestly. She's late.<br/>(Gerome, Lucina, and the silence of a valley far away from it all.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	you won't have to look far

…Someone was knocking at the door.

Gerome had been hovering at that horrid angle someplace between sleep and wakefulness—where he was only _just_ awake enough for his mind to turn labored, exhausted circles, but foggily, distantly—when he was stirred by the undeniable sound of a fist pounding against wood. For a long moment, he laid there, head dropped down on his arms and a pile of half-worked leather pressed against his cheek. A groggy glance at the window confirmed that it was pitch black outside and certainly _not_ the time for visitors.

_At least,_ Gerome thought, as he reached for his ax at the stubborn insistence of his uninvited guest. _Not for visitors polite enough to knock._

He heard no signs of commotion from Minerva outside. Perhaps it was a lost traveler or an especially spooked villager who had come to him in desperation for aid against bandits. Whatever the case, he was annoyed, because the odds were that any hope of getting a wink of sleep would be dashed for the night.

The face of his mother sprang to mind. Gerome supposed it would be a fair trade for potentially saved lives.

A last second decision informed him he wouldn’t need his weapon after all. He rested it against a wooden support beam nearby and opened the door partway, a minuscule quirking of his eyebrows being the only sign of his confusion…

...Which quickly escalated into an outright widening of his eyes.

“L-Lucina? What are _you_ doing here?!”

She had her cloak pulled tight around her and strands of hair tousled about her face, framing her slender and elegant features in a pleasantly untidy way. There was a sheepish edge to her smile and something that looked an awful lot like regret hidden behind her eyes…

Ah. He knew that look.

“You snuck out,” he predicted, stepping aside so that she could enter. Lucina dipped her head in thanks and made her way in, rubbing her hands together against the late-night chill.

“I…wouldn’t say ‘snuck out’. It’s not as if my parents control where I travel. They just ask that I stay in touch if I do.”

“Of course. But you’re doing _something_ that you’re not supposed to be doing.” Gerome wordlessly stoked the fireplace back up to a sizable flame, feeding some tinder into the hollow of curved stone.

 “Yes,” Lucina said with a soft laugh, and he closed his eyes. “I hadn’t intended on waking you up. I’ve been meaning to travel to see you, it’s just that I don’t always have the time to make my way to Valm…and I’m afraid my skills with pegasi are less than exemplary. If I hadn’t been borrowing Sumia’s, I don’t think I could have coaxed one into landing here.”

Gerome motioned for her to take a seat near the fire as he turned the chair at his desk around, pushing his half-finished saddle to the back.

“Untrained pegasi seem easily skittish of the wyverns,” Lucina continued as she sat.

“Rightly so. The wyverns here are amongst the fiercest you’ll find anywhere in the land. I hope you stabled your borrowed pegasus before coming inside…the night will not stop a hungry wyvern from hunting.”

“I did, don’t worry. Right next to the empty stall near Minerva. I’m sure she remembers him from all the battles you fought beside Sumia, and our travels together with her.”

“…Good,” Gerome said, and nodded.

Lucina was curiously silent, turning the edges of her cape between her fingers thoughtfully. The play of the flames across the blue of her eyes and the pale vigor of her skin was nearly hypnotizing, though Gerome made a point not to stare. The silence lingered for a few moments more as he allowed the exalt-to-be to gather her thoughts.

“Living here, on your own…are you doing well, Gerome? I mean, are you truly happy?”

“Yes,” he replied without hesitation.

He suddenly longed for the security and ambiguity of his mask as she fixed him with her level stare, looking so concerned and gentle that he could think of no better way to respond than the bluntest and simplest answer possible.

“I had guessed as much from your letters, but it was still something I wanted to see for myself. You said Cherche comes by almost every other day, didn’t you? Has she been here recently?”

“Earlier today.” Gerome broke eye-contact and concentrated on breathing slowly and evenly. “We spent a few hours caring for a pair of ill wyverns farther up the valley…it was…”

“Everything we fought for?” Lucina supplied, soft.

He gave her a look from the edges of his vision. “Mostly. And what of you, Lucina? Has all been well with your family?”

She perked up almost immediately. “Yes, it has! Mother and I actually went shopping earlier for items to surprise Aunt Lissa with for her birthday, though I fear I wasn’t much help in the fashion department…Maribelle was present and she was practically _frothing_ at the mouth at some of the choices I made. Still, it was…”

“Everything we fought for,” he echoed with a sardonic smile.

She exhaled a soft breath of laughter, leaning forward a bit and clasping her hands. “Exactly. It really seems like a dream sometimes, doesn’t it? But we truly did it. We changed our fates.”

“You led us well.”

“Only to our arrival here. Our true victory came at the hands of Mother and Father.”

“Modesty finely suits the future ruler of Ylisse, but I’ll have to insist that you take more credit than _that_. There were more times than I can recall where it was _your_ shining presence and _your_ fearless leadership that saw all of us safely through those dark days.”

“Even if that’s true—“

“Enough,” Gerome interrupted, sharp. “Accept the compliments, because they are fact as much as they are praise of your spirit.”

Lucina narrowed her eyes at him and he did the same, only for the princess to laugh again. He marveled at the sound—it had once been such a rare thing, and he wondered, would he ever chuckle so readily?—and she gave him a defeated glance.

“All right, I’ll concede, but only because I know you are more stubborn than I am. You have my thanks, Gerome, along with my belated apologies for disturbing your rest.”

“That is unnecessary. You have the right of it. I wasn’t asleep anyway,” he replied, and it was not quite a lie.

“…Have the nightmares declined at all?”

Gerome grunted, shifting in his seat and staring at the flames. “Considerably. But any time Mother comes over, I find it difficult not to think of her final moments whenever I lie down for the night.”

He looked back at her, only to find that she had followed his gaze to the fireplace and was pressing her fingers together so hard that that bones in her knuckles jutted out.

“When Minvera returned home without her rider,” Lucina murmured.

“Yes,” he agreed, but didn’t mention that he had also been thinking of the final embrace bestowed upon him before Cherche flew off into the morning’s light, never to be seen again.

“I remember that.” Her voice was impossibly quiet, and he knew that she _would_ remember, as she had been at his home as he waited in the yard for the return of a mother that would never be.

He actually had to lean forward to hear her over the crackling of the flames and the winds of the valley outside. Lucina continued.

“The two of us would be hard-pressed to find a memory that we _don’t_ share, wouldn’t we?”

“I suppose we would.”

She pulled in a breath, fixing him with that queenly stare of hers, so commanding and powerful that he could easily imagine legions of men going to war simply by her decree. “Gerome.”

(He was mortified to feel his face heat up at the _way_ she uttered his name.)

Lucina smiled, the edges of her cheeks red for reasons other than the chill of the night, and…

Ah. Yes. He realized that he had mistaken the look in her eyes just then.

“If you insist that I’m to take the nigh-endless praise you have for me, then I’ll have to insist that you take the same, you know.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but she silenced him with an extraordinarily commanding _blink_ , of all things.

“For _years_ you’ve been at my side. We’ve made quite the team, haven’t we?” she said, her voice warm in a way that only made his face burn hotter. “When the Risen were unleashed upon Ylisse in our future, you protected me from more would-be deathblows than I can remember. You have always been my most stalwart and trusted ally, and I feel as if I could _tell_ you anything, that together, we could _accomplish_ anything. Gerome, if I have truly been the beacon of hope that you paint me as, it has only been because you have always been there to keep me strong.”

There was a roaring in his ears and his heart was uncomfortably pounding against his chest.

“Even when we were separated for a time,” Lucina murmured. “The mask that you gave me…in it, I could find the courage to continue. And this is our future now, Gerome. The world that we all fought for. And during these last few months, I have found that I…I would like nothing more than to continue to be by your side again.”

He couldn’t help it. Gerome covered his bare face partially with one hand, trying and failing to keep the shock off of his face.

He saw her steel her resolve even as she took in his reaction.

“I confess I’m no more an expert on wyverns than I am on pegasi, but I would stay in this valley if it meant that I—“

“And your family?”

“I-I have no intention to stop seeing them,” Lucina replied after a momentary pause; the hitch in her words was bravely overcome.

“L-Lucina…I…” Gerome closed his eyes, desperate to find even _half_ the courage that Lucina was displaying as she waited with tense anticipation for his verdict. Her implication was clear, even if the word had yet to be uttered.

He swore that on this once normal night, he would be the one to say it.

Standing silently, Gerome crossed the two long steps to Lucina’s chair and knelt down before her, folding one gauntleted fist over his heart even as he bowed his head in solemn acceptance of her declaration.

“I will not attempt to gild these words. Not because you do not deserve it, but because it is beyond me. I will only say what I am able. What is the truth.” When he didn’t have to look at her…he felt a little calmer. A little more like the valiant man she saw him as. “Lucina. Since our childhood, I have loved you, and I will continue to love you until we both draw our final breaths.”

He finally looked up at her, internally reveling at the bright sheen in her eyes and the faint parting of her lips as an embarrassed grin blossomed. Yes. She was undeniably… _happy_ , and gods, there was not a woman in the world who deserved infinite joy more than she did.

If he could give it to her…it was another future to fight for. A battle that he would never lose.

“Oh, Gerome…You know I’ve felt the same way, don’t you?”

The touch of her hand upon his face only made his blush deepen, but he managed to maintain his typically stoic expression.

“Not until this very moment,” he admitted, prompting another wry smile from the princess.

“Then hopefully there will be no more masks between us.”

Rising, Gerome replied with a simple, “Well said.”

He wasn’t sure which one of them started it. He only knew that he found himself leaning in toward her, with Lucina’s fingers finding their way around the stiff curve of his collar--the next thing he felt was the impossibly soft sensation of Lucina’s smiling mouth against his.

He felt a surge in his chest—perhaps her newfound cheerfulness was contagious, after all.

\---

“But did you _really_ have to wait until the blasphemous hours of the night to tell me this?”

“I-I apologize, but the trip to Wyvern Valley had taken longer than I planned…”

**Author's Note:**

> so uh i wrote this at literally 4:30am and I hope it's not TOO awful. i'm pretty fond of lucina and gerome both but i have a devil of a time writing them--either way, i really hope you enjoyed it even a little, dear readers!


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